


Don't Look Too Closely, You'll Scream

by LadyGreenFrisbee



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: And might regret it, Angst, Avengers Feels, BAMF Tony Stark, Horror, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, In which Tony is a eldritch monster and aliens should get the hell off his planet, In which Tony kind of eats his problems, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, Multi, Nick Fury is Not Amused, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark Friendship, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark eats his problems, cosmic horror, eldritch horror, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:41:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22550410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyGreenFrisbee/pseuds/LadyGreenFrisbee
Summary: Anthony Stark dies on March 18th, 1974, in an unmarked bunker hidden beneath the Stark Mansion.Thethingthat is left stands up and takes his place.
Relationships: Bruce Banner & Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Loki & Thor (Marvel), Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Stephen Strange, pairings undecided - Relationship
Comments: 27
Kudos: 284





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So...
> 
> This is something I managed to dig up while looking through old files during a computer cleaning. It's about 1.5 years old so its been a while lol. Couldn't bring myself to delet this so I decided to post. I'll continue it in the future cuz this kind of horror is up my alleyway I think : D

_ My greatest creation. _ _   
_   
Tony stares at the drink in his hand with half-lidded eyes, expression blank. He hears the whirl of Dummy's wheels as the little robot busies itself around the workshop, but it sounds muted to his ears. He takes another swing of his beer, the alcohol crashing down on his mind and sweeping it deeper into a black pit of thoughtlessness.

Howard must have been drunk as  _ shit _ when he'd made this video. He'd had to be, it was the only logical explanation.

Tony gulps more of his drink. He knows that he should be doing something right now. He knows that there are people to meet and places to be, but at this moment, Tony Stark cares for fuck all save the bottle of beer clutched in his hands.    
  
_ Father? What are you doing? _   
  
The crate SHIELD sent him lays open to his left, contents strewed across the floor. Ancient papers full of Howard Stark's precious work are now covered with dirt, dust and wheel marks. U and Butterfingers were trying their best to pick them up, to sort the mess, but their claws are not precise enough.   
  
Dummy seems just fine with driving over them, tracking wheel marks all over the ancient paper. If Nick Fury could see them now, he'd have an aneurysm. Coulson would probably cry. It's an amusing thought, but it does little to distract him from the video he'd just watched.   
  
_ I'll make you a hero. _ _   
_   
He wished Howard was still alive, only so he could kill the man himself.   
  
_ Oh. Like Captain America, sir? _ _   
_   
Bash that wrinkled little face with his bare hands.   
  
_ Yes. Now be quiet. _ _   
_   
Short and to the point. He sneers as he remembers his busy father's detached expression. Impatient was but one of the many words Tony would use to describe his late father.   
  
Tony takes another swing of his drink. The genius let the memories wash over him, disjointed and broken and sharp, just like shards of glass.   
  
_ Father- _ _   
_   
It hurts.   
  
_ I said be quiet, Anthony. _ _   
_   
He wonders, sometimes, how the old man would weep if he saw him now. 

....more so, how would he would _scream_ if he truly understood what he made from his son's corpse.   


**.**

**.**

**.**

Anthony Stark is born on May 29, 1970.    
  
His mother is cursing his name as she gives birth to the next Stark. His father is not there; instead, voyaging on a boat amidst the roaring waves of the Arctic sea in search of Captain America. Only a doctor and a nurse are there to greet him.

The boy is born with flailing limbs and a loud scream of fury as he’s pulled into the living world. His first experience in this new plane of existence was his mother’s icy voice ordering the doctor holding him to take him away. The first smells he experiences are blood and alcohol.   
  
When he’s cleaned, clothed and placed in a nursery under a caretaker’s watch, he is quiet.   
  
But his limbs still kick and flail. His feet still push against the soft bedding, toes curling like a bird’s talons. His hands grab everything in sight. He bites and chews on everything. His brown eyes are wide and interested. He is a curious thing.   
  
And curiosity can lead to terrible things.

**.** **  
** ****

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** ****

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** **.**

Two months later, Howard Stark arrives home with the Tesseract in a case and a  _ gleam _ in his eyes.   


When he arrives, he spares but a glance towards his son before hurrying away. Time was gold and to waste it on a crying infant was beneath him.

**.**

**  
** **  
** **.**

**  
** **  
** **.**

Anthony Stark dies on March 18th, 1974, in an unmarked bunker hidden beneath the Stark Mansion.    
  
He dies smelling his own blood and his father’s whiskey.   
  
What is  _ left _ wakes to the content hum of a blue cube and Howard's horrified screams.

**.** **  
** ****

**  
** **.** **  
** ****

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** **.**

The third thing it comes aware of is its own wrongness.   
  
The discomforting sensation of being stretched and torn. 

Bloated. 

_ Broken _ . 

There is something missing from within itself. Something had been taken out and without this mysterious puzzle piece, it was  **lost** .   
  
It's a quiet sort of understanding, something you come to realize as you lay awake in the comfort of your bed. But it has no bed, no wool quills nor soft blankets to help it. It has a cold metal floor, four walls, a ceiling, bright lights, a bolted door and a smooth glass window. It's room smells of chemicals, death and blood. They offer nothing to it but confusion and suffering.    
  
It's driven mad.   
  
The first day it spends clawing at the light fixtures, wordless shrieks dripping out of malformed mouthed as it savages the furniture. The lights were just too bright, it burned its delicate skin it tries to cover itself with. When they are finally turned off and darkness crawls over it like a cloak, it encounters blissful peace.   
  
The second day it stands in front of the window, staring at the body hiding behind the glass, coaxing its eyesight to improve to the point it can see each individual pore of the being's skin. It comes to understand that there is something beyond this pale room. That this isn't everything. It was a cage. There was more out there.   
  
The third day it learns the meaning of curiosity. It maps out its small world, gliding tendrils across a smooth floor, forms feathers to brush them against the smooth glass, clicks serrated teeth against metal. It memorizes each and every scratch and bump cluttering the chamber. It learns to mimic them.   
  
On the fourth day it sits quietly in a corner of his room, limbs wrapped around its main body. It tries to think. All of its thoughts are all muddled and bare. Most often enough, it feels nothing, or very little at all. Sentience is hard. It often slips from its grasp and it takes time for it to hold it again. Patience is key each time nothingness strikes.   
  
On the fifth day it becomes more aware of its own body. It's something else than the being tucked behind glass, or the metal of the room, or the bright lights. It's soft and sinuous like a serpent, shape as solid as vapor. An abstract thought given stolen life.   
  
When the sixth day arrives its seized with an inexplicable urge to leave. It claws at the door, crudely crafted fingers slipping against the edges of the reinforced steel surface. Clumsily crafted bones break under the strain. It's not strong enough. Anything it builds crumbles and breaks against the metal, leaving it screaming in anger. There is no escape from this place.   
  
The seventh day it rests in a corner, huddled in a ball of cells, mewling through malformed mouths. Catatonic to the outside world, its attention is inwards, seeking to understand what’s happening.

**.** **  
** ****

**  
** **.**

**  
** **  
** **.**

It doesn't find what it's looking for.   
  
It finds something else, though.    


Names.

**.**

**  
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** **.**

**  
** **  
** **.**   
  


_ Who am I? _ _   
_   
_ Anthony Stark.  _ The memories whisper against his mind. They feel like broken glass, shattered and disjointed. Blood. Whiskey. Disinfectant.   
  
Screaming.   
  
_ You are Anthony Stark. _ _   
_   
They don't fit. Neither does the name. Nothing fits. It just doesn't feel right.   
  
Why?   
  
_ the cube was as blue as the sky and so cold he can't he shouldn't hold it in his arms but he d o e s _

**.**

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** **  
** **.**

**  
** **  
** **.**

Tony.    
  
Just Tony.

**.** **  
** ****

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** **.**

**  
** **  
** **.**

Howard, Tony learns as the days turn into weeks, is a very, very strange man.   
  
He is curious, he is brisk, he has no patience. He reeks of excitement, distress and alcohol. He pokes and prods and studies and tries to rip parts of him away to further poke and prod and study, but Tony doesn't let him. He snarls, rises and quivers when the man attempts to take more of him away, howls and cries through crumbling throats and twisting tongues the man’s name.    
  
It seemed to be the only thing that stops Howard in his tracks. He would go quiet and smell of distress; often enough he would leave and not return for long stretches of time. 

Many quiet days are spent being watched through the glass, interactions restricted to a minimum.   
  
Howard already interacts with him at the strict necessary, and that's fine. Most of the time he is alone anyways, left to his four walls and bright lights that make him shuffle and wince. He’s not allowed to break them anymore.    
  
It's an exercise of the mind to bear it.   
  
Tony finds ways to spend time, a concept he's only just begun to grasp with a room so bare. He prods half-forgotten memories from the  _ before _ , lets them wash over him like soothing rain. It's grey and blurry and dead, but it's better than sitting here bathing in silence.   
  
It's not enough. 

There's not enough.   
  
_ “How old are you now?” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “I'm four years old!” _ _   
_   
Left to his own accord, he turns his attention onto himself.   
  
Being able to shift his mass with a thought, he finds, was an absolute nightmare. The constant influx of information was dizzying. He feels a phantom lost of limbs, of solidity, of a heart, lungs and bones. Tony can barely understand the longing. It's uncomfortable and he wants to bottle it up and throw away the key.   
  
His new flexibility is just as disarming. Painful, even.   
  
He couldn't think, couldn't anchor himself. Tony was disoriented and hurting, and more than once he found himself screaming wordlessly through toothless, deformed mouths. He's slipping, he's bloated, stretched and there was a gaping hole in his core that refused to be filled. It's an open wound that bleeds and festers, but doesn't kill him no matter how many days he spends curled up in his cell.    
  
The injury aches and he shifts with it, trying to compensate for the loss. He's more solid compared to the first few days, yes, but he's an agglomeration of eyes and feathers, scales and wings, talons and pincers. Things with forgotten names or things he can't understand at all. There is no pattern, no goal in his shifts. Nerve cells shift, multiply or die before the brain he'd painstakingly built can understand the information, or stop it from happening.    
  
It's agony.   
  
Built and broken, over and over again.   
  
He tries, but he can't stop changing. It comes pouring out of him in spurts and he's sweep by the current. Except, he's the thundering, churning waters and there is nothing to hold him back, no dam or beach or stone to keep him still, keep him solid and whole.    
  
His skin ripples with the pattern of stormy oceans and he shudders, wrapping alien limbs around himself. He's not human, nor animal, not even a plant. His skin is bone, metal, spines, fabric, flesh, or nothing at all. Abstract, his distracted mind offers as he slumbers on a cold metal floor.   
  
Dealing with Howard on top of this was a task by itself.   


It's been months, why did the man still smelled so  _ sad _ ?

**.** **  
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**  
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**  
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** **.**   
  


Amiss the shocks, the samples, the experiments and the attempts at treatments _-lies you did this-_ Tony understands that he couldn't leave this place looking like this.   
  
He needed to be solid. 

He needed to look and act _human_.   
  
Most of all, he needed _Anthony_.   
  
He chose to do start when Howard set out for an expedition. The goal of his voyage tickled at the back of Tony's brain -jealousy why can't he stay for the holidays Jarvis please tell him to stay- but he couldn't remember. It was a dead memory of a dead child who’s meaning he couldn't grasp.   
  
Tony had a lot of those.   
  
Building himself a proper suit was a process he'd gone through in a haze. Skeletal, muscular, nervous systems were hard to mimic, and Tony spent days practicing. He couldn't fail. He couldn't let his disguise slip while he was out, he had to stay firm and solid, had to lock himself in a semblance of a human shape and throw away the key if he ever wanted out.   
  
So he tried. Failed. Tried again. Over and over. Built bones and lungs and muscles and hearts, grew a brain and skin and hair. There were mistakes, an extra eye, some scales or teeth peaking through the thin layer of human skin, and Tony would have to untangle that section of his body and start again.   
  
It was frustrating work, especially when the liver shuts down and acid ate part of the right lung and _no no_ he needed to adjust the tendons there humans couldn't bend their arms that way _dammit why did he have feathers_ \- but in the end he was able to recreate a coherent disguise.    
  
His first solid, human disguise.   
  
It's strange, so be solid -disturbing, even. 

Retraining. 

Like a thunderous river held back by a dam.   
  
He spends a day testing this new self. Stretching his legs. Rolling his shoulders. Wriggling his fingers and toes. It’s all very different from before, when he was but cells mashed together in an incoherent mess. He’s solid. Small, solid, warm. Tony rests a hand on his chest. A heart beats strongly in his rib cage.   
  
He should feel happy, but he can't.   
  
He feels something quiver underneath his skin. He feels cramped. It's something he pushes aside. That wouldn't do. Not now.   
  
When Howard Stark finally returned home and marched beneath the belly of his mansion where he was locked away, he was ready.   
  
When the man  _ -father remember he is  _ **_father_ ** _ don’t slip or you’ll never get out _ \- enter his side of the cell, he finds a naked child slumped against the door of the cell. Tears streaming down a pale, doll-like face and wide, glossy brown eyes turned to the man standing on the other side of the observation window, pleading.   
  
Distress permeates the bunker. It’s thick on his new tongue and acrid on Tony’s nose. He wrinkles his nose against his will. Thankfully it only further sells the image of a hurt, confused, terrified kid.   
  
As expected, Howard all but flings himself at him. He smells of desperation and hope when he all but squashes his face against the glass, taking in the sight of the shuddering child.   
  
Caught up in his own relief, he doesn't see the anger simmering under dark pupils.   
  
"Father," Tony cries, biting down the revulsion and cold hatred that flares through him as the man sways, looking ready to run away. “...where….am I? Father what….is…?”

_ Look _ , he wanted to say with a twisted grin,  _ look at what you made, look at what you turned your offspring into, you pathetic drunk, he's dead dead dead and I'm what’s left, the cuckoo invading your nest.  _

It takes all of his will for his shape to not flicker. To not let this mockery of a human body break down, bones break and tendons snap out of place. It’s difficult but he’s learning and soon he would have all the time in the world to figure out.

For now he cries instead, forcing himself to look small and scared and confused as he shrinks into a ball of limbs against the glass, the shape almost too small for how big he truly was. Sending signals to make his lacrimal apparatus work was easy. That’s one part he practiced very much.

A few shudders and sobs to complete the look, he paws at the glass and whimpers:

"...please, help me... I-I don't feel good, father....please...."   
  
He watched Howard carefully; watches how the man, looking older than he’d ever been, almost bashes his head against the door of his cage in his haste to reach it. A trill goes down his new spine as a clammy hand landed on the heavy doorknob -so close so close don’t  _ fail- _   
  
It doesn’t happen. 

Shaky and bug-eyed, Howard opens the door and lets him through, babbling, trying to make up for his sins towards a dead son. 

He offers the whole world on a silver platter to the thing he'd kept caged.   
  
Tony takes it.

**.**

**.**

**.**

When the man picks him up and holds him close, shaking and crying from a mixture of disbelief and surprise, he can’t see the smile Tony makes against the collar of his shirt.


	2. Mask

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adjusting to life in the Stark Mansion is hard. Especially when you're not human to begin with.

He barely remembers leaving the cage.    
  
He walks up the stairs, trailing after his father. The staircase is sharp and narrow, crafted from stone and steel and smelling of chemicals. 

It's too tight, too cluttered and for a moment Tony longs to turn back and hide in his room -his nest, safesafesafewarmcomfortwhole-   
  
But he also wanted to be free.   
  
He wanted to experience this strange world.   


The bunker had been his cradle and this was his time to  _ be _ .

**.**

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He doesn’t realize the ruse at first.    
  
The day Tony leaves the basement is spent in a haze. It's a rush of new colors, scents, textures, sounds...it filters through his nerves, aligning themselves with what he remembered of Anthony and he's swept away by them. It overrides what he knows and subdues his formless, easily distracted mind with its sweet lies.   
  
Tony looks at the familiarity of the Stark family home and can’t help it.    
  
He slips back into  _ Anthony _ .   
  
Every decor, room or person brings his memories back to the front of his mind. He soaks and drowns in them, like a frog trapped in a pot with water that slowly becomes warmer and warmer. Anthony had been young, it was easy for him to just ignore what happened, to block it out of his mind. 

Just another nightmare.   
  
Jarvis was euphoric to see him again, and for a while that was enough. Enough to dismiss the tired, wretched look in the butler's eyes, how his mother had all but vanished into the wine cabinet, how Howard Stark looked at him, expression haunted. Anthony hadn't understood it well enough then. It felt like a game, a game he'd never played with Howard before the lab in fear of spat words and whiskey bottles flying at his head.   
  
Being human is easy. It just clicks in place, so simple and warm. He wants to be here, as Anthony. It feels good.   
  
At first.   
  
Then it starts flowing back in. An open door. Whiskey and blood. A cube,  **_blue blue blue_ ** , as bright and endless as a cloudless sky and far greater than even Tony could comprehend. Four metal walls and bright lights.    
  
Grounding words, they sink under his skin like fangs and hold on like barbed wires. Through them, he’s reminded of the truth. The next time he locks eyes with Howard, a week after being freed, Tony holds his gaze until the man finally turns away, pale and shaking and reaching for a drink.    
  
Something quivers under his skin, pleased. 

On a deep, wretched level, it brought him joy that Howard knew. That he still  _ remembered _ .   
  
What happened couldn’t be swept under the rug.   
  
Swept with a thirst for power, Howard Stark murdered his son and Tony was the rotting, walking corpse that would be there to remind him of his sins for the rest of his life.

**.** **  
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He's not human.   
  
It's a distinct probability he'd been aware of previously but now, now that he was outside the four metal walls and the nothingness of a simple existence, this solidified into a fact.   
  
They were just different. In the way they held themselves, how they walked, how they spoke. They were so bumbling, precarious and fragile, working like clockwork around the Mansion. They couldn’t stay still for long, needed to breathe and were just clumsy, flawed little things that both infuriated and interested him.   
  
It was never a better contrast than when they interacted with him. How they blanched when he tasted the air with his nose or tongue, how he could spend hours sitting in one position without moving, just watching anything that caught his interest. 

And how they  _ felt _ .

It was maddening.

They felt too much. Lived too much. Woke up so late in the day but moved around like those strange little yellow insects outside -bees, Anthony’s memories reminded him- and ran around for the entirety of the next few hours, taking only pause -or not- to eat, defecate and clothe themselves with delicate fabrics. It’s a constant, tiring ritual that Tony was subjected to as well, even though eating and sleeping did nothing for him and well, nothing passed on the other side.

He merely just….existed.

Brought to a standstill while the strange little creatures around him darted around, so fast yet so slow all at once. Strange little creatures that were human, and as Tony was quickly remembering -realizing- he was not.

He was too smart to show himself though. To stop the charade. Howard had seen, and only a glimpse in Anthony's memories showed that it had driven the man to the brink of madness.   
  
Right. 

Anthony.   
  
Tony  _ hated  _ Anthony. He hated the name, hated the echoes of something each time he riffles through the database of memories. To say that Tony is uncomfortable in this skin is an understatement, but he refrains from doing anything about it.    
  
He needs it.    
  
He can get used to it.   
  
(Maybe one day it will  _ feel  _ like his.)   
  
Even if something was missing. Something that woke him up in the middle of the night, chest hollow and keening. Shards of glass would be stuck in his lungs, needle-like and jagged, yet nothing could dislodge them. No matter how he rebuilt his lungs, how he removed his lungs entirely, it never went away.   
  
Distress was a cruel mistress, more so when he had nobody to talk to. Even at his age he knew there was nobody he could confine in. He was different, different and wrong, and god help him if anyone found out what he was.   
  
He often spent those sleepless nights curled up under a nest of blankets in his closet. Tony would give into his instincts, seeking out the closest hiding place to retreat in his moment of vulnerability. Weeping into too warm hands, room devoid of the sound of breathing.   
  
The distress passed when morning came and he had to continue the farce once again. 

Put on a mask, twist the facial muscles into a human’s smile, and avoid thinking about the horrid sensation of being squeezed into the shape of a fragile doll.

  
**.** **  
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Tony stared down at the little statue of Captain America in his hand. He spun it delicately in his grasp, turning it over and examining every aspect, every scratch and missing paint on its surface.    
  
Phantom memories showed him placing the delicate statuette on his nightstand, commanding a small makeshift army of little soldiers and plush toys. It's what Tony should be doing, he knows, but looking down at the face of Steve Rogers now, looking at the blue paint of his eyes he doesn't feel anything but a mild urge to sniff the wood carving.   
  
Yielding to that instinct, he brings it up to his nose. Cheap paint, oils and human, though the latter dated. He tilts his head at the curious little thing, eyes blinking slowly. They shimmer, switching from infrared sight to ultraviolet back to human eyes. Nothing. His tongue darts out and pokes the illustrious Captain on the chest. The taste is just as interesting as a rock.   
  
Frowning, he sits back and stares, long and hard. Tries to will something out of himself. Anything.   
  
There’s nothing.

Emptiness is his response.   
  
Tony sneers and chucks the toy against a wall. It cracks and dents, the statue is a mess of splinters on the carpet. He feels no sense of loss. An object was an object there was no interest in keeping it whole for him. Anthony liked that thing. Not him.

He was not Anthony and he would never be.   
  
Sighing, the brunet looks down at the collecting of trinkets spread out around him. He knows that he should, but he no longer sought to play with the toys hidden under his bed; the same toys that Howard had flagged him bloody for having now lay in front of him on the floor of his bedroom, just as interesting as the one he'd just broken. Tony would turn the small wooden trinkets in his hands, feeling the texture under pale fingers. 

He would sit there for hours on end.   
  
Waiting.   
  
Hoping.   
  
No matter what he did, he couldn't feel that joyful urge to play anymore. Tony only looked at the toys and saw little shapes carved out of wood, not the vessels in which his imagination would flourish a mere year ago. They were objects, without use. He had no need for those.    
  
So he put them in a box and under his bed.   
  
(He'll try again tomorrow.)   


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Most often than not Tony wanders the empty, pristine halls of the Stark mansion, clutching his chest. 

He feels his heartbeat under his fingers, but it's muted.   
  
Fake.    
  
_ missingmissingmissingohgodwhatdidyoudotome- _ _   
_   
Sometimes, it takes him hours to remember he has to breathe.

.

.

.

Tony likes to hide.   
  
Plainly put, it was instinct. Under the bed, behind a column, at the top of the stairs -any place in the mansion that had a shadow, he’d hidden himself in it at least once. Mapping out possible secluded spots, Tony finds, is an interesting game.

He needs to feel that comforting darkness. He really doesn't like the light.    
  
At first, he'd been indifferent to this, preferring to go along with what Jarvis, Maria, Howard or any of the dozens of maids asked of him and just  _ be a good boy, Anthony, do your homework, you've missed enough as it is _ . Within a week, however, the itch steadily amplified until it was clawing and scratching at that part of him that just didn't fit quite right under human skin, that wanted to tuck itself away in a dark corner with a full belly and empty, blissful slumber.    
  
Safety and warmth. From what he could understand were very basic desires in human standards, but Tony craved them.    
  
So he slept under the bed, wrapped up in silk blankets and ornate pillows. He stuck to the shadows, and tried his damnedest to avoid bright lights. He ate his share, but learned to sneak snacks away for storage, much like those strange furred creatures scurrying in the trees outside. Squirrels? Squirrels. Tony liked those.

It was just that. Instinct. It eased him, helped keep himself calm and ordained when it was time to play human, a centering force that helped him breathe.   
  
Tony did learn to crave new things though. He learns to appreciate the heat of the fireplace, the taste of food, the freshness of open air, the soft sound of Maria's piano on the rare nights her blood wasn't forty percent alcohol, lulling him into a state of bliss. Not that she knew he could hear her play. Maria never saw him and he preferred keeping it that way.   
  
He learns to enjoy humanity. Or at least, tolerate it.

**.**

**.**

**.**

Tony rarely sees his supposed mother around the house. 

She likes to alternate between her private bedroom and the living room, always holding some kind of connection in her hands. Tony learns early how to track her, the scent of alcohol and fruity sugar of her favoured beverages clinging to her skin like an invisible shroud only he could see.   
  
If Maria Stark isn't out of the house, then she's on the phone with another elite, discussing plans for upcoming charity events or simply gossiping about the latest rumours amongst the upper class. If she's not on the phone, then she's spending hours in her bedroom getting ready for a galla. If she's not playing dress up, then she's arguing with Howard over the smallest things, from missing clothes to the butler’s attitude, to late payments to Tony.

And if she's not yelling at his father, then she's getting absolutely roaring  _ drunk _ .   
  
Tony doesn't pay much attention to her at first. She does so little around the house, it takes him less than two weeks to know her routine to the point he knows when and where she'll be in the Stark family home. She's here so sparsely as well, she became of little interest for him. He'd found much more interest in scouring the grounds of tracking the comings and goings of the staff.   
  
That is, until Anthony's memories started digging into his reconstructed skull again, demanding attention like a prancing, ruffled bird nipping at his face and shrieking into his ears. Suddenly all he could pay attention to was the most prominent parts of Anthony's childhood; his bedroom, Howard, Jarvis and Maria.   
  
His room was already mapped out, each toy, book and furniture carefully examined over a series of days with inhuman interest. He knew where everything was and how it had come to reside there, and while Anthony's scent had long since dissipated, leaving only his own to permeate the room, he didn't truly see at his. 

He'd spent enough time around Howard to render himself ill, and since Jarvis was becoming much more distant to him than the memories suggested, Tony didn't bother.   
  
But Maria. 

Maria became of interest the moment it truly clicked that she was his mother.   
  
Mother. Mother  _ mother mother _ . He sits one day in the living room, pondering that strange title, twisting the word in his head, letting it bounce around his skull like a song on repeat. Mother. Life giver. 

Anthony's.   
  
His mood sours slightly at the thought. He glances at the woman standing by the wine cabinet, gauging her reaction. Maria is well on her way of getting roaring drunk, and she seems to have completely forgotten about the little boy sitting still on the couch. If she noticed he hadn't moved a hair for over an hour, well, she'd forgotten about that too admits the haze of booze.    
  
Something tugs at him, disliking being ignored. He doesn't like it, but he'd learned to accept the fact his father, butler and mother treated him as if he didn't exist half the time. Tony knows it's -what's the word?- rude, borderline on child neglect, but given the fact he would need to be human for it to apply, he thinks he's well off.   
  
Tony shifts, slowly standing up. He walks over to Maria, who's back is turned as she drinks down another cocktail.    
  
There are some advantages with being forgotten.   
  
Something quivers under his skin, anticipation flaring through his mind as he watches the finely dressed woman slowly empty her bottle. He hesitates for a moment, before his curiosity inevitable wins out and he reaches out for the female Stark, smoothly huddling himself in the space between her hip and her right arm in a makeshift hug-   
  
-and then he's suddenly shoved away, surprise making him stumble and almost falling over.   
  
Tony stumbles back but catches himself shortly, his muscles tensing at the unexpected attack. The something rattles within him, stressed and tight, a chained animal awoke by a rasp again its cage. Befuddled, his expression is unreadable as he looks up at his mother, questioning her with empty eyes.   
  
Maria is shaking on her feet, her lips pursed tight. Her drink, forgotten on the table. Her face is a twisted one, a grimace that makes her seem all the more human, a mixture of animal terror and abhorrence. As if a juvenile alligator had just been dropped into her arms and she'd all but scrambled to push it off her lap.

Tony shifts on his feet. 

He can't stand her expression. It's far more lively than anything she'd given him previously, guarded and faintly, only barely fearful. It's tugs at something buried deep under his skin. He couldn't stand it. It hurt.    
  
Feeling nervous for the first time in his life, Tony darts his tongue out. 

The taste of terror is thick in the air, heavy and acrid.   
  
Maria grimaces. Tony understands too late he'd overstepped some kind of invisible social boundary when he sees his mother's eyes latch onto his flicking tongue. She balks, a barely perceptible flinch coursing through her body.    
  
Her eyes move from his lips to his sunken, dead eyes, once more catching the wrongness that exhumed out of him. Suddenly she’s swaying like a wounded bird, a tower drifting in the wind, preparing to fall, her fingers white like weathered bone around her bottle of wine. She's holding it tight enough to crack it. Her eyes wide and empty. Tony thinks of them akin to the bulging eyes of a dying animal, rendering paralyzed at the sight of its inescapable fate.

She spins around and walks away, never spilling a droplet of her alcohol. He watches her go, slamming the door shut behind her.   
  
His eyes, dark and hooded, fall on the wine cabinet she enjoys so much. Tony walks over to it, fingers trailing over the ornate cabinet’s door. His nose twitches at the overwhelming scent of alcohol, but he doesn't step away from the source of the offending smell.  
  
It seems like all she did nowadays was to drink. Drink at home and then go to galas to drink there among silk and satin, forgetting about the state of her house as she gossips with people she wouldn't trust to take care of a cactus.   
  
Tony understands that she's ashamed to even look at him. He doesn't resent her for it.  
  
Deep down, he's ashamed too.  
  
 _(Your own son, Howard.)_  
  
Twisting the door of the cabinet open, he grabs a bottle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not saying that there's gonna be a bit of friction with Steve but oh boi, there is going to be~!
> 
> Also, going to make reaaal use of that horror tag next chapter. And the 'Tony eats his problems' one. RIP. Should add the gore tag too just in case.
> 
> TLDR: You can't expect something that isn't human and doesn't possess the knowledge of right and wrong to conform to societal values. Monkey feel, monkey do. Or in this case, cosmic eldritch monster feels like having a snacc, he gets a snacc.
> 
> 10/10 Jarvis not amused. The _carpet_ , Tony!

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts and opinions would be appreciated! I'm rusty and slowly getting back into the Avenger fandom XD


End file.
